Your Right to Know

Following a new push to derail Ohio’s use of Common Core academic standards, supporters
acknowledge they’ve been complacent and need to step up their game.

Ohioans “are hearing from one side and not the other. We have not been effective in our
counterpunch, and that needs to change,” said Greg Harris, state director for StudentsFirst. “We
have to be much more aggressive in explaining what Common Core is about.”

“It’s a lot easier to spew lies and scare people than to explain that’s not what Common Core is
about, but we have to start explaining. We need to call out sources who have been fueling this
conspiracy,” Harris said.

Hearings will start in mid-August, and Huffman said the aim is to have the bill pass the House
soon after the November election, when lawmakers return to action.

“The standards we are going to have in place are going to be better standards,” Huffman
said.

Gov. John Kasich noted yesterday that he and lawmakers took steps in the off-year budget bill to
address issues of transparency and parental input.

“If there are more things that need to be done and we’re seeing an erosion of local control,
then we’d have to address it,” he said.

But Kasich is not backing down from his support of Common Core: “Let them have their hearings.
We’ll see what all of this is.”

Ohio was among the first states to approve the use of Common Core when the State Board of
Education adopted the math and English standards in 2010. In all, 45 states and the District of
Columbia approved the use of the standards.

Lisa Gray, project director for the Ohio Standards Coalition, about 30 organizations including
the Ohio Chamber of Commerce that back Common Core, said when people read the standards they often
don’t find specific objections. But that takes time — a challenge, she admitted, in the age of
Twitter and other quick-hit social media.

“Explaining the new standards, what they are at each grade level, that isn’t a 10-second post on
Facebook,” she said.

Mike Petrilli, executive vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said 40 states are
still on board with Common Core. “But what we’ve seen in other states is the politics on this issue
can change very quickly. Opponents can be very vocal and passionate, and that can influence
legislators.”

Petrilli said supporters need to remind lawmakers and the public that the nation’s governors and
school chiefs developed Common Core to better prepare high-school graduates for college and
career.

“We have a lot of young people who are still in need of remediation or not ready for a job” when
they leave high school, Petrilli said.

In Ohio, for example, according to state data, about 40 percent of high-school graduates who
enter college need remedial math or English.

Bill sponsors are unsure what standards would replace Common Core, but say they need to be
rigorous and proven.

“We’re looking at other states that have proven standards, and one good example we’ve looked at
closely is Massachusetts,” Thompson said.

If Ohio adopts Massachusetts standards, “they’re adopting the Common Core,” said Tom Scott,
executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents.

Massachusetts has been phasing in Common Core standards, meshing them with state standards
developed over 20 years that helped make students there top performers on the National Assessment
of Educational Progress.

“Adopting the Common Core didn’t eliminate that states had some flexibility to add or delete
things they wanted,” Scott said. “By and large, people within the education community have all
embraced it and feel it’s the right thing.”

Scott and Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School
Committees, the equivalent of school boards in Ohio, see the fight over Common Core as largely
political.

“Republican governors created the Common Core. That’s why with the people who are really
knowledgeable around here, the argument doesn’t carry any water,” Koocher said. “The hard right has
jumped on this because it’s the best thing they can do to mobilize their base, generate fundraising
and demonize the president.”

Oklahoma lawmakers repealed Common Core standards, and until new ones are developed — a process
expected to take at least two years — districts will use old state guidelines from 2010. The
decision has raised concern because under those standards, 42 percent of Oklahoma students must
take remedial courses after graduating high school.

Indiana dropped Common Core and adopted new state standards that largely mirror Common Core
under a different name.

“If this fails for some reason, it will be a long time until we improve the standards, because
it takes a long time to build consensus” among elected officials, school leaders, teachers unions,
parents and others, said Thomas Gunlock, vice president of the Ohio Board of Education.

When people complain to him about the standards, Gunlock said he asks what line or standard they
don’t like and “no one has been able to cite a line or standard. Most say they haven’t read
it."